"I predict that these measures announced by the Home Secretary will amount to piss and wind and that various human rights lawyers are, as I write, already working out just how to drive a coach and horses through them.

Nothing, nada, zilch is the only way I can describe what will be the ultimate results of this announcement by the Home Office."

In the video, Mr King told how they had wanted to leave the hospital because the NHS could not fund the proton beam treatment that they wanted for their son.

'We couldn't take it any more - not knowing and not being able to question anything in fear that they say, "Sorry Mr and Mrs King, emergency protection order, you're no longer allowed in the ward",' he told the camera.

'Under that stress, our son has grade four brain tumour, we couldn't discuss or question them at all in fear that our son would be in that ward all day long by himself without his parents being able to come in.

'We couldn't be under that system any more. I was going to get the money to pay for the proton beam therapy but they have prevented that now because the Spanish police are involved and I can't do want I wanted to do.'

Does that spell it out for everyone sufficiently?

For all those people who carped and cavilled and sanctimoniously declared 'A child's life is at stake!', as if that meant we shouldn't dare question the state which only has our best interests at heart, because we are stupid sheep who should never seek to exercise free will if that free will might not be in complete accordance with the state's will?

The NHS didn’t want them to get treatment in Marbella. And they successfully suborned the police to ensure that that happened.

And now they plan to extradite the parents, so they won’t even be able to stay by their terminal son’s bedside, an act of such monstrous, stubborn & wilful cruelty that I've now got even more reasons to be ashamed of my country.

Mr and Mrs King's hearing - which will be closed to the press and public - may take place as early as tomorrow.

The couple are expected to oppose extradition so defence lawyers can then argue at a new hearing they should be released on bail for humanitarian reasons.

If they oppose extradition, the extradition judge would have to decide whether to release them on bail or remand them in custody.

It's up to you, Spain. Are you going to show the compassion and humility that the UK can't seem to muster?

Saturday, 30 August 2014

The Jay report’s description of the collective political and leadership failures in Rotherham as “blatant” could not be more stark. Accountability is of course important, but we are fooling ourselves if we think this child abuse scandal is all about individual failings and that the dispatch of key individuals is a sufficient response.

Dunno about that, Kier. Depends on how many scalps we claim, and how far ranging we make it, doesn’t it?

At the heart of the problems identified by the report, the commissioner’s reports and the work I did as director of public prosecutions in issuing new guidelines on prosecuting child sexual exploitation in 2013 is a deeply embedded cultural issue about how we deal with vulnerable victims.

‘We’..? Don’t you mean, how you, the establishment, the lawmakers, the state, carry out that function?

First, the majority of victims do not report what is happening to them to the relevant authorities.

And those that do are ignored. So let’s concentrate on those first, eh? Then maybe the others might come forward.

The second feature common to cases of child sexual abuse and exploitation is that when individuals do pluck up the courage to come forward they are often met with a wall of disbelief.

Well, maybe that’s because some of the accounts are indeed unbelievable, and some of the people themselves are seriously doubtful, as Anna Raccoon has exhaustively chronicled.

But so what? Should we suspend all disbelief now?

A 2002 Home Office research report into activities in Rotherham, which was “suppressed” because senior officers did not believe the information in it, recorded that the police were reluctant to respond to missing person reports.
They saw them as a waste of time and regarded the young women concerned as “deviant” or “promiscuous”, and took the view that if the young people concerned were not prepared to help themselves, no further action should be taken.

And I can see how some of the elder teenagers could be viewed in this light, but some of the victims were as young as 12. 12…

We need raw honesty about the cultural change required in relation to vulnerable victims. We have allowed a series of myths and stereotypes about how “real” victims behave to creep into our institutions and our decision-making.

Always the opportunist, eh, Kier? Desperate to push your agenda and happy to use any opportunity to do so, no matter how inappropriate.

The case for some form of mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse backed up by criminal sanctions is also overwhelming.
The need for such a scheme is at its most acute where there is a conflict of interest between reporting and some other interest, such as reputation, risk of exposing previous failed responses or fear of being clear about the ethnicity of the perpetrators.

I had wanted to stay in social work, but after a placement answering calls on what was known as the frontline I realised that most of my work would be sorting out emergency payments for food and heating. People needed money, not cod psychoanalysis.

It was also obvious that social work systems were not only failing, but under attack. First they came for the social workers (bearded do-gooders), then they came for the teachers (the blob) … this is how neoliberal ideology has been so effective in running down the public sector.

I’m only surprised she didn’t drag in Thatcher – surely someone somewhere in lefty-land has by now?

The running down of children's services to a skeletal organisation in an already deprived area is spelled out in the report, which talks of "the dramatic reduction of resources available

…

By 2016 Rotherham will have lost 33% of its spending power" compared with 2010. Buckinghamshire, by contrast, will have suffered a 4.5% reduction.

Officials who failed to stop Asian gangs(Ed: They mean Pakistani-origin men, for the main..) preying on young girls for fear of being branded racist are set to cost taxpayers up to £200million.

At least 1,400 girls aged as young as 11 are believed to have been sexually abused in Rotherham, South Yorks, for 16 years by men who viewed them as “white trash”.But it is feared the real number could be more than 2,000.

Each victim could now be in line for payouts of £100,000 to £1million as compensation for their ordeal which highly-paid council and police chiefs failed to stop.

The sharks are circling…

One legal firm has already launched compensation proceedings for 15 victims.
David Greenwood, of Switalskis Solicitors, said: “In each of the cases I’m handling there have been failings by individual social workers, but more importantly we’ve identified that Rotherham Council and South Yorkshire Police have failed to act on information which could have led to the arrest of perpetrators.”

Campaigners said the public purse will now be hit because taxpayers will have to pick up the bill for the shortcomings of top officials.

Friday, 29 August 2014

A "major investigation" is under way to find a five-year-old boy with a brain tumour after he was taken by his parents from hospital without the blessing of doctors.

Because doctors are God! What, you think you’ll decide if he needs more painful (and maybe hopeless) treatment, or if maybe another country can perhaps do better than the NHS? Who do you think you are? What makes you think you have any rights? You’re just his parents…

I notice there’s no mention of a court order forbidding their actions in any of the reports. Is this because the police now feel able to act without one?

Update: There being sod all on TV last night, I decided to ask a few questions on Twitter. I got nothing at all to my repeated queries to the police social media accounts or media outlets Tweeting the appeals, who remained firmly in 'broadcast only' mode:

From others, I got some....surprising...answers:

Yes, folks, that's a police federation rep in 'Never mind the laws, they are irrelevant when there's a crisis at hand!' mode.

And then...there were the 'ends justify the means because there's a ickle kiddiewink involved!' people. There were a lot of these:

And even those who you'd think might be a bit wary of the state bypassing all legal gateways and abrogating parental rights to themselves proved less than interested because RELIGION!

… could worsen the mental health crisis in Britain's jails as vulnerable young inmates are forced into darkness, campaigners have claimed.

Oh.

And who would care more for the welfare of the poor crims than any prison discipline?

Frances Crook, the chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform ….

Ah. Figures.

… warned of the "terrifying" rate of suicides in prisons and called on the government to rethink its plan, saying it will leave young prisoners in isolation for too many hours.

Oh, poor lambs!

"The very experience of prison is damaging to your mental health but imagine if you have had bouts of depression in the past or any kind of mental health problem and are then locked up in a cell for 22 hours a day with stinking ventilation and really a rather grotty diet for weeks on end.

Oh, stop! I'm welling up here!

"That is the prison experience today and so even people who have not had mental health problems and are quite robust will be badly damaged by the prison experience."

Well, it's a shame there's nothing they could do to avoid it, eh? Like...not committing crime?

Thursday, 28 August 2014

Although still only 17, Kesia Leatherbarrow had a long history of self-harming and mental health problems when she was arrested by police in December 2013 for having a small amount of cannabis.

She was kept in the cells all weekend, where she became distraught, banging her head and pulling out her hair, before being sent to court on Monday morning. The court bailed her to come back the next day but a few hours later she was found dead in a friend’s garden.

I'm tempted to say we didn't lose a potential brain surgeon.

Dr Sarah Wollaston MP highlighted earlier this week the “scandal” of vulnerable children and young people being given mental health assessments in police cells for want of anywhere more suitable to take them.

Except she didn't hang herself in her cell, but when she'd been released...

Kesia was the third 17-year-old from the Manchester area in three years to die soon after being arrested on minor charges. Neither of the previous two, Eddie Thornber who died in 2011, or Joe Lawton who died in 2012, had any history of mental vulnerability. Both boys had been popular and high achieving.

Like Kesia, Joe was kept overnight in the cells before being released, Eddie was held for a shorter period – but both boys’ parents believe their sons killed themselves because they were traumatised by their arrests and thought their futures were ruined.

So...the police shouldn't have arrested them?I wonder just what those 'minor charges' were..

What is needed is greater investment in this area and a fundamental shift in thinking that recognises that whether they have been arrested or detained because of mental health concerns, in the words of Brincat Baines: “The police station is no place for any child.”

Except when they've been suspected of committing crimes. And a 17 year old is, increasingly, no 'child'.

A court was powerless to impose conditions on the control of a dog which attacked a 65-year-old woman – because its ownership has changed.

Wha..?

Mother-of-three Emily Savage, who owned the dog at the time and appeared in court yesterday, was unaware the attack was taking place, believing her pet to be securely locked in a shed.

And why would you need to do that..?

Nick Wenden, defending, said: "When she was home the dog was inside the property but when she was out, to stop it from chewing things, it was locked inside a shed. But she concedes it might not have been locked, she can't be 100 per cent certain."

Ah.

Chewing things like furniture? Or like neighbours?

However, magistrates were thwarted in their attempts to attach conditions to the ownership of the American bulldog, called Stella, such as having it muzzled in public, after being told they no longer had the power to do so as, following the attack, which happened in March, Savage had returned the dog to its breeder, who lives in nearby Melbourne Avenue.

Which is yet another example of the stupidity of the law. Why would this bizarre loophole exist?

In mitigation, Ian Cliff said: “Mr Gross has demonstrated maturity by completing a suspended order and holding down a job as a scaffolder.

“This was undermined by his lack of common sense and maturity in purchasing the spray.

“He acquired it, placed it in his car and then forgot about it.

“There is no logical explanation for it and it goes against everything he has done since his conviction for grievous bodily harm. If he were jailed today he would lose his job and they would default on their mortgage repayments almost immediately.”

Yes. Those are called 'consequences',. Something the justice system seems to try hard to ensure no-one ever faces...

Wednesday, 27 August 2014

Does it matter if Dave’s family were good for a few quid, or that Ed’s dad was a prominent academic, or that Nick didn’t go to the comprehensive down the road? As far as many on the right are concerned, it really doesn’t – and if it does, you must be one of those envious losers who hate success.

Correct!

But there are many on the left who don’t think background matters that much either. Tony Benn (formerly known as Viscount Stansgate) didn’t think his privileged upbringing was any impediment to his role as a leading socialist.
It’s a persuasive argument: it’s not where you’re coming from in life that counts, but where you’re going and whose side you’re on.

Ah, the shameless pragmatism of the Left.

But you won’t hear many people from poor backgrounds in politics, or public life generally, who will agree. They know better. Because where you come from certainly does matter.
Sayeeda Warsi, following her resignation as a government minister, hit back at David Cameron’s inner circle after their whispering campaign suggesting she wasn’t up to the job. “I don’t hold [against them] the fact that they haven’t had the breadth of experience that some of us who didn’t go to public school have had,” she said. She reminded them that, as a working-class woman, she had been hearing similar comments all her life.

As...as a what? She went straight from university to a law firm and then, finding even that too much like hard work, became a professional politician.

She's hardly a horny-handed daughter of the soil, is she?

There are many men, whites and straights in our society who are disgusted by sexist, racist and homophobic abuse and passionately want to see it ended. But no matter how profoundly they experience that disgust, it will never be in the same way as those who have felt it across their own backs. When you have lived through prejudice and its consequences, it gives your response a personal edge that marks you out from those who haven’t.
And what is true of gender, ethnicity and sexuality is also true of class. All over Britain, there are communities and individuals who have had their lives blighted or even destroyed by economic forces over which they feel they have no control.

Ah, because what they 'feel' is all important. Not the facts. Not reality.

It doesn't matter that they'd have some control, if they merely took some responsibility and stopped listening to people who constantly tell them that society owes them a living, does it?

Being working class is, of course, no guarantee that a politician won’t bend in the wind or wilt in the sun. It’s not even a guarantee that they will support the rights and interests of their own people. Plenty of idealistic working-class men and women have made their way into the political establishment and decided that it suits them after all and they’re running with it. But at least they have backgrounds, experiences and relationships with their own voters to betray in the first place.

But the Left don't seem to want politicians who 'support the rights and interests of their own people' when they are white and British, Dreda.

Nor even when they are all colours & creeds, if those 'rights and interests' conflict with the desires of the Left and professional whingers like....well, like you.

Nicholas was fined £250 and told to pay the owners of the pug £300 compensation, but he was not disqualified from owning dogs after the court heard he had taken precautions to be responsible with Scrappy.

The dog, which is not classed as a pitbull but has the characteristics of one, always wore a muzzle and was kept on a lead when out for walks and was in a pen in the garden of the family's home.

So, he’s free to get another dangerous dog and allow his 20 year old criminal son to walk it in public without a lead or a muzzle…

But he still isn’t satisfied, is he?

Steve Hudson, defending Nicholas, said his client would be appealing against the decision.

In any just society, the judge would say ‘OK, we reconsidered – we’re ordering the humane destruction of your son as well’…

Tuesday, 26 August 2014

The 25-year-old sportsman was convicted of rape in April 2012, jailed for five years and is due to rejoin society in October.
According to the official supporters’ club at Sheffield, he will be greeted with the opportunity to take up his old job on release.

Which the 'Guardian' should champion, right?

But a petition against his re-employment has thrown a spanner in the works, quickly going viral and gaining coverage across national media. More than 60,000 people have signed it.

Well, I bet they won't be happy about that! It must be those dastardly right-wingers, eh, always finding new ways to torment poor ex-cons?

Evans isn’t merely returning to gainful employment when he waltzes back to take up his previous position at Sheffield United, he is regaining serious status.

Well, he's going to be a footballer. I rather thought the progressives looked down on such rude pursuits and were scornful of those who elevated them to such 'status'?

Like the music industry, however, the football world has become a bit too big for someone to creep back in unnoticed. When Chris Brown pleaded guilty to assaulting his then-girlfriend Rihanna, stickers started appearing on his albums in HMV that said, “Warning: do not buy this album. This man beats women.”
The message was clear: we no longer accept blind veneration in a powerful, influential sphere of someone who has shown such blatant disregard for another person.

No, I think the message is 'Some people have far too much time on their hands', actually. And I'm willing to bet sales of the items weren't affected much.

It was not a call to permanently exclude Brown from society or employment. Instead, it was recognition that if this world seamlessly assimilates perpetrators of domestic violence, then something has gone horribly wrong.

But don't you believe in rehabilitation?

I believe in rehabilitation and second chances …

Well, then..?

Being a footballer for Sheffield United, however talented one may be, is not a right. It is a prestigious and prominent position in a disproportionately celebrated field. Evans – a man who has never even acknowledged that he raped his victim – surely doesn’t deserve to return to this honour with minimal fuss. At the very least, an acknowledgement that violence against women means something to the world of football is desperately needed before putting him back on the pitch. Pretending that he never committed a crime just isn’t good enough.

A mum warned fellow shoppers after a Southend High Street store closed suddenly, leaving her without her goods.

Dawn Murphy, 40, of Eastern Avenue, Southend, faced a major challenge trying to get back her six-year-old daughter’s Hudl tablet after taking it into the electronics shop for repair.
She paid £35 for it to be fixed as well as £15 for a new charger and £25 for a cover.

But when she returned to pick it up last Wednesday, she was shocked to find the shop empty.

Letting him jump would have been cheaper, certainly. Of course, he had no intention of jumping, he’s yet another childult whose answer to anything challenging is to have a tantrum…

Sam Walker, 25, said police were only after him because of a clerical error and says he is innocent after charges of assault and possession of cannabis were brought against him.

Well, the place to prove that is in court, not on the roof!

Mr Walker said he threatened to jump from the roof because officers failed to listen to his argument that he had tried
to answer bail three times at Grays police station.

He said: “The police are idiots for wasting peoples’ money. They should be out there catching the proper criminals. They have messed up big time because of a lack of communication. But they won’t listen."

And…what prevented you from answering bail? An impenetrable force field?

His mother Ria Alexander, 50, said: “He was sunbathing on the roof and the police came to arrest him.

We showed them his paperwork, but they still decided to send a helicopter. It was a complete waste of taxpayer’s money.”

I wonder if Ria & her moronic offspring are actual net contributors to that taxpayer pot…?

Monday, 25 August 2014

It’s difficult to view citizens as partners when you’re looking at them through a Kevlar helmet and a riot shield …

It’s pretty difficult when they are coming at you with knives of throwing bricks & bottles too. Or is there no corresponding responsibility expected from the public?

It’s no wonder so many cops – like some of those in Ferguson, Missouri – view their own community as the enemy when they spend their time geared for combat. It’s no wonder why they, in return, are viewed as an occupying force.

When they are viewed as such, you have a population that's not going to listen to anything.

I was the city police chief during 1999’s so-called “Battle in Seattle,” the clash between anti-globalization protesters and my police officers. I realize now that the way we looked – and the way we behaved – provoked and exacerbated the violence.

Riiight. If you'd showed up in normal uniform, they'd have behaved themselves. Of course.

It may be too late to have prevented violence in Ferguson, but the community and others like it must come together now and make immediate changes to establish a baseline of behavior for law enforcement – to abide by today and to build upon for the future. The situation in Ferguson is no longer just about Michael Brown’s death: it’s about systemic racism and patterns of neglect, about leadership and the ability to influence angry, sometimes criminally motivated, individuals.

What the police should do with 'criminally motivated individuals' is monitor them and arrest them when they finally step over the line. Not pander to them, or excise them on the grounds of 'society done 'em wrong'.

First, leaders in Ferguson need to put together a large, representative, credible crisis team to work with the police, communicate systematically with the community and, most importantly, elicit grassroots suggestions for resolution of the conflict.

I suspect you won't like those suggestions. Or...maybe you will?

Thereafter, the city or state government should convene a group of citizens, officers, politicians and civic leaders to craft and quickly implement a statement of non-negotiable standards for the performance and conduct of each and every police officer: for example, any officer should be fired if found to be using racial or ethnic slurs or excessive force. Those local officials should create a citizens’ review board (and a process for filling it) and give it investigative authority and subpoena powers, rather than rely on the local prosecutor and police to investigate their friends and colleagues – rather than just waiting around for the US Department of Justice and FBI to complete their own independent investigations.

Yup, I think you will. Because it's clear to see now why you are the ex-city police chief.

It's horrible to contemplate the state of mind of a young man like Bary – formerly a would-be rapper called Jinny but son of a radical Bin Laden associate – or fellow jihadis, some from eminently upright British immigrant families. How can they move so easily from suburban London or Cardiff to a world where mass executions of perceived Isis enemies, complete with decapitations, can become both normal and morally right?

...let's not over-react, let's not do some of the brutally counterproductive and brutal things we've done in the past. We want the lucky Kevins to survive, to come home for clean underwear, chastened not angry, and keen to go to college.

'We' do, do we? You don't speak for me. Or for many others.

I want Kevin to lie in the sand of some bombed-flat hellhole, bubbles of blood collecting on his lips as he expires, slowly, from a sucking chest wound.

During the programme on Monday Mr Higinbotham's 15 tattoos were on display - including a ‘White Power’ slogan, the foot-long image of Adolf Hitler, which dominates his back, and an intricate picture of the Ku Klux Klan, which runs across the length of his stomach.

Lovely!

During the programme, father-of-four Mr Higinbotham said he had never had had a full-time job due to having a disabled son, and a lack of help by the Government.

Riiiight....

'I only went on the show to stick up for poor people and they have twisted what we said to make us look like morons.'

That must have been an exhausting task for them.

'I am no racist and I am definitely not fat. The programme made me look so podgy, I watched in horror.'

You can always go on a diet. And get laser removal. And then maybe you could get a job!

Saturday, 23 August 2014

… it was good to see the announcement last week of a £300m package of public and private investment for the 100,000 Genomes Project, a Cambridge-based research initiative to sequence genomes of NHS patients.

This is a significant step into the promised brave new world of medicine, with genetic code deciphered to discover, treat and even predict illness. It will also boost a related project focusing on children such as mine whose disorders evade conventional diagnosis.

Let's hear it for real progress, eh?

Now we enter the age of genetics, which offers such hope for advancing healthcare but has also sparked a new form of eugenics, with scientists talking of eradicating disabilities at birth from the human condition.
This has long been predicted; even 24 years ago Troy Duster, a prominent sociologist, warned of a back door to eugenics made up of “screens, treatments and therapies”.

Now zealots such as John Harris, bioethics professor at Manchester University, advocate what they call “enhancing evolution” by eliminating genes that cause unwanted conditions to create “better” people. Last year, he told me on television it was “morally wrong” for parents to choose a child with a disability if science offered an alternative.

And who could argue with that?

Those preaching this new eugenics conflate health and disability, harm and difference. They dismiss how diversity enriches the world, reject complex issues of choice, ignore implications of inferiority.

My daughter’s condition is at the most extreme end of the spectrum, requiring 24-hour care. Yet she is happy and smiles often when the wretched seizures are at bay, giving love back to those around her and lifting spirits.

Hmmm, yes.

Now, I'm not suggesting euthanasia for 'useless eaters', far from it. Nor was poor Prof Dawkins, but that didn't stop the Twitterstorm from sweeping down on him.

But to be frank, who could object to ensuring that we eradicate such awful genetic abnormalities from the gene pool before they are brought to term?

Solicitor Daniel Donaldson, 34, said he and his partner Arran Southall, 28, have endured months of misery as their property was attacked and they were abused at their home in Edinburgh.

Mr Donaldson, a volunteer at Glasgow 2014, has written an open letter to the Scottish Justice Secretary, the Lord Advocate and others urging them to review the current laws on hate crime which he said were ineffective against children.

All our laws seem to be ineffective against children. Hell, they aren’t that effective against adults most of the time!

The couple had lived happily in the Drylaw area of the city for the past three-and-a-half years but trouble started earlier this year when a number of new families moved into the neighbourhood, he said.

And I get the distinct impression that these children would not have been angels should there have been no gay people in the immediate vicinity. The targets would have been the elderly, or the mentally challenged, or any ethnic minority, or the obese, or...

I'm sure you get the picture.

“It just built up over a period of time. It started with low level stuff – them shouting ‘gay’ and ‘puff’ – and then escalated quickly to vandalism and property damage,” he told The Independent.

And this should be the offence - the vandalism & property damage. But it won't be.

Edinburgh councillor Cammy Day, community safety leader, said: “Hate crime is completely unacceptable. The council treats all reports of hate crime extremely seriously, and is working with Police Scotland to investigate.”

… the sad fact is that the right to cook is not a right recognised by the Irish government, at least not under the strictures of its Direct Provision (DP) regulations, as they are applied to the few thousand asylum seekers who are housed in dozens of locations around Ireland, awaiting a decision of their application for refugee status.

Well, d’uh!
Good lord, of all the phony claimed ‘human rights’ of the progressives, I think that one may just be the dumbest…

Many people over recent years have commented on the unfairness and unsuitability of the system of DP. But it seems to me that while there have been complaints about the quality of food served to the residents – “A steady stream of chicken nuggets, white rice, ketchup, vegetables and chips daily, and a distinct lack of toddler appropriate foods,” was how Ronit Lentin, of Trinity College, Dublin, described the fayre back in 2012 – there is a bigger issue here than simply what is served three times a day to the residents as they wait for years to hear if they will be granted refugee status.

When NASC, the Irish Immigrant Support Centre, examined the food experiences of asylum seekers in Cork in their paper What’s Food Got To Do With It?, their first finding was that “food provided in DP is not satisfactory”. That’s what one would have expected, but it is the following conclusions that show the true depth of the problem: “Food does not represent the cultural and multi-faith religious needs of asylum seekers living in DP centres in Cork city. The food system in DP has a negative impact on the families and children who are residents of direct provision centres.”

So…they’ve travelled to Ireland from a dangerous situation in their home countries, usually by extremely dangerous routes, and when they get here, while their claims are being assessed, they are housed and fed – for free!

And they are complaining about the quality of the food..?

Under the DP system, residents are served food three times daily, but they are not allowed to cook their own food. No chapattis for the family from Pakistan. No pounded yam for the Nigerians. No breakfast of tea and canjeero for the Somalis. Instead of these staple foods that people love and crave, the system gives them chicken nuggets, ketchup and lots of chips.

Well, yes. Compared to the supposed terror they’ve fled – fled for their very lives, as they claim – then being given ‘culturally inappropriate food’ is hardly going to raise much of a concern, is it?

The effects of the so-called western diet on people who are used to traditional diets has been studied for the past century and, as Michael Pollan has written, “wherever in the world people gave up their traditional way of eating and adopted the western diet, there soon followed a predictable series of western diseases, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer”.

As opposed to the certainty of the starvation, beheading, forced marriage that they are supposedly leaving behind? Sounds like a bargain to me!

I think we need to take the system of DP, and what it does to people and their families who are waiting in the asylum process, very personally. Just think of how you would react, if every morning you were offered rice, miso and umeboshi pickles, instead of your favourite cereal or that beloved boiled egg and a hot cup of tea?

If I’d scrambled aboard a packed plane or boat leaving the country ahead of a war or religious persecution, I’d probably feel it was manna from heaven!

In mid-2014, there are more than 50 million displaced refugees throughout the world, the greatest number since the second world war. Ireland in the past has had a proud history of supporting the oppressed. With the DP system, however, Ireland stands indicted of denying the most helpless people the most fundamental right: the right to cook.

Once they get their claim decided, they can either make a new life in Ireland (and cook) or go back to wherever they came from (and cook).

The state pensionable age is climbing, slowly but relentlessly. By 2018, women will, like men, not be eligible for a state pension until they are 65. After that the goalposts move for both men and women together, so that by 2044 they will have to work until they are 68. The effect of the changes, which have been creeping in since 2010, is to hold the ratio of pensioners to working-age population at around 30% until the 2040s, at which point something else may have turned up – preferably not the elixir of eternal youth.
This is what is causing the real crisis in the welfare state. But, as older voters can be relied on to vote, tackling the politics of pensions has to be done more by stealth.

In other words, ‘Damn, they’ll actually act in their own interests! Curses! Our plans would work, if not for those dratted kids pensioners..’

Even if the objective of getting everyone of working age enrolled in a responsive, dynamic system that guarantees an income to all at a decent and sustainable level comes off – in terms of probability, this is up there with the elixir of eternal youth – it is still almost certain to be pensioners who will be absorbing at least two-thirds of everything that the government spends on benefits. Nor do the demands of the elderly on the state stop at pensions. It is the cost to the health service as well.

Well, only so long as the NHS is restrained (somewhat) from killing them off by starvation or dehydration…

Redefining what is old may seem the obvious place to start. It is easy to see why the fit and the well-paid should stay at work. It is rather harder to make the case for those who have toiled for a lifetime in low-paid jobs. It is fair to ask workers to pay for pensioners, but it is unfair to ask workers to pay for pensioners whose assets far outstrip theirs. And it is equally unfair if good jobs are occupied by people who could afford to retire.

The perennial socialist cry: “Hey, you! You shouldn’t be using that! You should give it up to someone more deserving! ”
They, of course, will be the ones who decide who is deserving.

This looks to me suspiciously as if the having-it-all generation, just as it ought to be preparing to bow out, is greedily lining up to have a bit more. These are the people born between 1946 and 1964. That really was like winning the first prize in life. Free university, the housing boom, the Pill, the explosion in white-collar jobs and pensions – for a majority, that has been a golden ticket to a life of unparalleled good fortune.

And now they should just have the good grace to die, so we can plan our Brave New World.
God, I loathe socialists.

Carl Havern is a model Big Society citizen. He volunteers for three different causes every week and cares passionately about improving his community.
He is also a recovering heroin addict on benefits, who has spent much of the past decade in prison.

I just love the idea that I’m working my guts out to provide tax revenue to these people…
Sorry, these ‘vulnerable’ people!

Mr Havern is a member of a community group in Salford starting a quiet revolution against the prevailing stereotype of some of the country’s most vulnerable citizens. It has been meeting every Thursday since October, plotting ways to challenge the increasingly incendiary rhetoric about people on benefits. This month the group launched to the public in the hope that others who are fed up of being labelled as scroungers will follow suit.

Oooh, this’ll be good! *grabs popcorn, settles in*

The group’s long-winded name – the Non-judgemental Integrity Compassion and Equality group – thankfully boils down to the acronym Nice.

And it’s about as much use to society as the other NICE…

Funding cuts meant Golda Bolanda, 33, lost her job as a project coordinator for a charity in June last year. In the past four months alone she has been to interviews for more than 50 jobs but got nowhere.

She says the stigma around benefits almost stopped her claiming them – until things got desperate.
“We’re called scroungers, but the work that we do in the community is so important. Yes, we’re on benefits, but in the meantime we’re doing something.”

But clearly, it’s not something anyone wants to pay you to do. I wonder why?

Letitia Rose, 46, struggled to cope with the prejudice she encountered when she found herself with a new baby and no job.

At 46?!?

Now she works part-time, but is still frustrated that lone mothers who stay at home face prejudice that mothers in relationships do not. “A mum with a partner gets the right to stay at home and look after the kids and bake cakes and go to pre-school without being judged. But mums on their own are seen as sitting on their backside claiming benefits. What’s that saying about society and how women are being judged?”

It’s saying that the ideal start for a child is two – count ‘em, two – parents, not one, plus Government stand-in.

Letitia’s neighbour, Fred Pilling, 60, is also in the group. He has lived in his three-bedroom home for the past 44 years but now the bedroom tax is making it unaffordable. Now that he has £26 less in housing benefit, he is often left with just £10 to spend on food.
He has arthritis and literacy problems and survives on benefits, spending his time keeping his local area tidy. He said: “If I see rubbish I’ll put a pair of gloves on and pick up the kebab boxes and pizza boxes.”

So…I should pay excessive tax so an illiterate with no job can live in a three-bedroom home? I should coco!

Sean Mills, 38, of Low White Close, Barrow appeared at Furness Magistrates’ Court yesterday.
He pleaded guilty to having custody of a fighting dog and to being in charge of a dog dangerously out of control.

It wasn’t his dog. He was just left in charge of it:

Mr Trystan Roberts, defending, said Mills had been looking after Kaydee for a friend and was not aware that the animal was classed as dangerous and did not know about the legal requirement for a muzzle.

Was he the sort of person you’d leave a dog with? Well…

“This is a defendant who is not without his difficulties. He suffers from anxiety, depression and a number of mental health problems.

“He suffers from arthritis, cognitive difficulties and a lung problem.”

/facepalm

Mr Chalk imposed an eight-week curfew on Mills and ordered him to pay £150 in compensation to cover vet bills and £85 in costs.

Given he’s almost certainly not working with that catalogue of ailments, guess who’s paying that?

Progressives and activists are outraged by yet another policy that makes normal people say ‘Well, about time!’:

… a creeping and insidious campaign by this and many other American cities to drive the homeless out of their midst by a combination of police harassment and increasingly draconian new ordinances that make being homeless a criminal offence.

Oh, really? Gosh!
No, not really. Just more hyperbole:

It is a charge the city vehemently denies. But so far this year, it has passed two such laws, one making it illegal to urinate in public…

Those inhuman monsters! Isn’t it everyone’s human right to crap on the pavement whenever they feel like it?

… and another serving notice that any belongings left unattended on public property can be confiscated.

And, presumably, fumigated. Or incinerated.

More are pending, including one that would make it hard for charities to serve meals to the homeless in public spaces.

Why is it that the National Parks Service can set up these signs, while we are supposed to pretend that this concept doesn’t also apply to humans?

The town is far from alone in drawing the ire of civil rights groups. A new study by the National Law Centre on Homelessness and Poverty (NLCHP) tracks similar attempts to criminalise street living in 187 cities in the US.
“Many cities have chosen to criminally punish people living on the street for doing what any human being must do to survive,” it states.

We, as a society, would rather they didn’t live on the streets. It’s dirty and dangerous for them, and for those who live and work around them. And so we provide services to ensure that they don’t have to live on the streets.

Some are unable or unwilling to take up those opportunities.

What else are we supposed to do with them?

“More cities are choosing to turn the necessary conduct of homeless people into criminal activity,” said Maria Foscarinis, director of the NLCHP. “Such laws threaten the human and constitutional rights of homeless people, impose unnecessary costs on cities, and do nothing to solve the problems they purport to address.”

It is not ‘necessary’ for people to urinate & defecate on the street. It’s a health hazard. It’s not a constitutional right to do so!

“The suggestion that the city is criminalising homelessness is without merit. Fort Lauderdale has a distinguished history of compassion toward those in need,” a city spokesman Matt Little told The Independent. But he also alluded to the pressure that comes from business owners to remove the homeless. “Protecting our quality of life and business environment ensures continued funding for humanitarian needs.”

The activists and progressives seem concerned only with ensuring their own quality of life, at the expense of everyone elses’. Which is pretty typical of the sort of people that would demand no laws against public defecation.

A paranoid schizophrenic knifeman who tried to murder two women in Catford and Plumstead Common has been detained indefinitely in a mental hospital.

Archibald Reverent Foster had been hearing the voice of Kojak actor Telly Savalas telling him to kill people so he could be the next black president of the USA when he struck twice last year.

Errr, right…

Ms Nguyen was left with injuries to her hand, arm and leg. In a witness statement she said the trauma meant she sometimes still feels scared of walking alone.

A 51-year-old man was arrested in connection with the incident on August 22, but was subsequently released without charge.

So the police had Foster and let him go?
Well, no. This was someone completely innocent. Who now has an arrest on his record.

One wonders just how and why he came to the police’s attention…

But Foster was not arrested and was free to strike again weeks later, this time attacking Stratford careworker Ms Kun, who was enjoying a sunny walk to work in Plumstead.

/golfclap for the Met there…

A jury took just under an hour to decide that Foster - whose mental state meant he was not fit to plead - did attempt to murder the two women.

Judge Michael Topolski sentenced Foster, who has been diagnosed as insane, to an unlimited time in a mental health institution.

I wonder if he has a record of these sort of attacks? It wouldn’t surprise me one bit.

Investigating officer Acting Detective Sergeant Stephanie Chance said: “I would like to thank the two victims for their courage and the support they’ve given to the investigation throughout. This was a horrific, unprovoked attack on them both and I wish them the very best for the future.

"I would also like to commend the bravery of each of the witnesses who went to the aid of both victims. Without their courage and intervention these attacks could well have been fatal.
"I am very pleased with the sentence, a very dangerous man is now off the streets and is receiving the care and treatment that he requires.

"I would also like to thank DC Shukeil Mandala from Lewisham for his assistance in this investigation, leading to the conviction of Mr Foster."

And just what did officer Mandala do? Point out you had the wrong man? Point you to the right one?

Wednesday, 20 August 2014

A coroner has called for an internal police probe into the investigation of a mental health patient’s unexpected death.

Caroline Beasley-Murray complained to Essex Police’s professional standards department after an inquest into the death of Lee Usselman, 55, who was found dead at his Canvey home.

It seems the police didn’t see any suspicious circumstances, and Ms Beasley-Murray thinks they didn’t look very hard (which, to give her her due, they do have a bit of form for, after all).

Mrs Beasley-Murray recorded an open verdict, saying there was not enough evidence that Mr Usselman of Harvest Road took his own life, or that he died following an accidental overdose.
She was critical of Essex Police’s investigation of the death.

It seems Ms Beasley-Murray might have watched one too many courtroom dramas.

Mrs Beasley-Murray heard PC Rachel Moss had single-handedly investigated the death, before deciding there were no suspicious circumstances.
Cross examining the officer, she asked: “You were on you’re (sic) own, you did not inform an inspector?”

PC Moss said she did not because “there were no suspicious circumstances”.
Mrs Beasley-Murray added: “You should have,” but the PC insisted it was policy not to inform an inspector unless there were suspicious circumstances.

The coroner added: “Did you not want confirmation from the inspector? Did you take any photos or request any other police attend? You had no back-up from anyone else?

“You keep quoting force policy, but I know the force policy too.”

PC Moss replied: “No there were no photos and no back up.”

That must have been almost as entertaining as the classic scene in ‘A Few Good Men’.

Mrs Beasley-Murray said: “Were there any empty blister packs? Did you photograph them? Anything else noteworthy?
You have not got a photographic record.”

PC Moss said: “I spoke to Susan Usselman, his wife.

“He had been in hospital and depressed and had previously tried to overdose. He was on restricted medication.

“I checked his pocket. There was no note. In his wallet was a piece of paper, but it was not significant.

“There was an empty beer bottle by the bed. There was nothing at the time to suggest suspicious circumstances.”

Medical records show Mr Usselman had a history of selfharm and taking overdoses, depression and alcohol problems.

It would seem that it wouldn’t take Columbo to solve this one. So…why the fuss?

Mrs Beasley-Murray said: “I am not sure he formed the intention and took a deliberate act to take his own life.

“The court has also considered if it was an accident, that he took the tablets and drink deliberately and did not expect it to turn out like that, but there is also not sufficient evidence to record it as an accident.

“I am going to record an open verdict.”

Which seems rather perverse, though I can appreciate the natural desire to do all one can for the surviving family.

The Roundhill Tunnels near Folkestone were closed last night because police were worried about a man who was spotted in the road, a spokesman revealed this morning.

The London-bound carriageway of the tunnel on the A20 was shut from 10.45pm to just after 1am leaving queues of traffic trapped inside.

This is becoming a typical response to these incidents.

Police officers and Highways Agency employees turned the vehicles around while a trained negotiator spoke to the pedestrian and eventually persuaded him to accept medical assistance from paramedics in a waiting ambulance.

Which probably explains this:

Can't have the public expressing their displeasure at the police actions, can we?

“The police told my partner it was on a lead but was too far out for the officer to control it, and if that’s the case they should have it on a shorter lead.

“You don’t want somebody who’s got nothing to do with a police incident getting involved in a chase.”

Quite!

He said the police knew instantly the dog had caught the wrong person as the suspect they were looking for was wearing shorts.

I guess the dog didn't read the BOLO...

A spokesman for GMP admitted a man had been bitten by a police dog during the response to reports of the fight, which was treated as a grade one incident, receiving scratches on his arms and puncture wounds on the thigh.

They made unlikely jihadis; Amal el-Wahabi was described by her own barrister as a "foul-mouthed, phone-addicted, weed-smoking kaffir", Nawal Msaad a glamorous university student who had to be warned by the judge for associating with a male defendant in another court.

Actually, they sound like just the sort of dim-witted airheads who would fall for something like this…

Wahabi was held in the sway of her husband who had swapped drug-dealing and criminality in the UK for jihad in Syria, while her old schoolfriend Msaad was accused of being an unquestioning mule who was drawn by the promise of €1,000 (£800) to carry money to Turkey.

Yup!

Their appearance in court reveals just how wide the net is being cast by anti-terrorist officers to deter those who are lured to fight in Syria and those who might choose to support them back home. Sources confirm that these two women were not extremists; and were not a threat in any way to this country.

Oh, I don't think you need to be a card-carrying jihadi fighter or supporter to be that, do you? Being enough of an airhead or petty criminal that you can be duped into this sort of thing makes you a threat too.

Monday, 18 August 2014

Drunk people coming to A&E have made emergency departments “a hostile environment” for many patients – but charging people who have been drinking is not the answer to overcrowding, doctors have said.

Hmm, I wonder what the answer is then?

Could it be ‘paying doctors more’, or ‘hiring more of them’..?

Dr Tom Black, chair of the BMA’s Northern Ireland General Practitioners Committee said that, while drink and drugs were causing major problems on A&E, charging patients would backfire.

“In A&E at the moment we have a situation where demand from drinkers and drug-addled people is blocking off other patients in need,” he said.

“Some patients now regard A&E as a hostile environment which they’ll only go to as a last resort – that’s not good enough. We have to find a way to discriminate between needs and demands.”

However, asking for payment at hospital would harm the doctor-patient relationship, he said.
“But from a doctor’s point of view, why would you want to put your hand out before you see someone? If you’re at a barbecue, have a few beers too many and somebody hits a cricket ball that knocks you on the head, do you turn up at A&E and get fined because you’ve got a few beers in you? it doesn’t seem reasonable and it would cause such value judgements to be introduced that I can’t see doctors wanting it.”

Saturday, 16 August 2014

As a black woman with natural hair, I’ve come to expect fascination, ignorance and sometimes insensitivity about my appearance from people outside the black community. Comments such as “your hair is messy/crazy/wild today”, “you look like a sheep/brillo pad” and “your hair gets in the way” are frequently part of natural life.

Really? That sounds just…well, fake. Like so many of CiF columnists’ claimed experiences.

What I’m less ready to tolerate is criticism of natural hair from other black people.

Errr…

Sometimes the criticism is subtle, such as dirty looks in the street from other black girls wearing their hair in weaves. Other times it’s from those closer to home. I have friends whose family members have repeatedly asked: “what are you doing with your hair?”

Yup, me too, when I’ve tried something new with it. Would you prefer no-one notice?

A few weeks ago, while preparing for an important interview, a well-meaning black friend, advised me to straighten my hair, and another acquaintance recommended I “put it in a bun”. I was appalled. They failed to address any of my real concerns yet felt entitled to burden me with this “advice”. I went for the interview, feeling as if my hair was yet another thing counting against me.

These are not simple pieces of advice, such as we all get from friends & strangers alike. These are, apparently, ‘microaggressions’.
If you’re self-absorbed & have a chip on your shoulder, anyway…

Since moving to Paris last autumn, though, I’ve noticed a stark difference in the attitude towards my hair. Nobody seems to care. And it’s relieving. No one pets my hair on the Metro, which has happened on the tube more times than I care to remember. More surprisingly, there is a distinct lack of hostility and commentary from other black people, whatever their hairstyle choice.

When I ask various black French people why other black people don’t critique my hair in Paris, the resounding reply is: “You’re black and your hair looks like what a black person’s hair should look like. What is there to say?” For them the in-fighting surrounding natural hair is pointless.

And the source of this miraculous lack of interest in trivialities?

Having said that, the reasons may not always be positive.

Oh, right. Perish the thought!

“Black people in Paris have bigger problems, such as their constantly questioned identity and racism,” says Alex, a 34-year-old artist. He’s right. The recent spike in support for fascist parties in France such as the Front National is much more of a concern, as is the high rate of unemployment which still disproportionately affects black people.

Gosh, you mean, faced with real issues of racism, ‘microaggressions’ don’t get a look in? Fancy!

Sporting a cover image of a blue-eyed family with guns clipped to their belts, a new American children's picture book is setting itself out as the solution for all those parents who "carry a gun and sometimes struggle with how to best explain the reasons" to their children.

My Parents Open Carry, by Brian Jeffs and Nathan Nephew, co-founders of the pro-gun Michigan Open Carry, has been released by small US publisher White Feather Press.

The picture-book fellows a "typical Saturday running errands and having fun together" for 13-year-old Brenna Strong and her parents, say the authors. "What's not so typical is that Brenna's parents lawfully open carry handguns for self-defence."

If it sounds familiar, well, we all remember how this tactic has been used by the progressives, don’t we?
And are they happy their tactics have been used against them?
Reader, they are not:

"Modelled on the gay parenting books of the 1980s (right down to the moustache) this is a vital instruction book for everyone who wants to teach their children tolerance. Tolerance of moustaches that don't match the wig, and tolerance of people who need to over-compensate for 'something' by brandishing a gun in public. Don't worry, we get both messages, loud and clear," wrote one reviewer on Amazon.

"This started out as a 5 Star rating, but quickly went downhill as the evening progressed," wrote another. "After saying our prayers to Jesus and Charlton Heston, I sat on the edge of my kids' bed to read them this book, when I shifted my position and accidentally set off my 9mil that was strapped to my hip, shooting myself in the thigh."

It was described by Raw Story as portraying a "day in the life of 'typical' gun nut family", and "a primer for the children of gun nuts who'll be lucky to see their 10th birthday". "As a prologue to the kids … I'd like point out that – no matter what mommy and daddy say – over 10,000 kids are shot each year in the United States and having a gun in the home makes you less, not more safe," wrote TBogg at Raw Story.

Oh, is there anything more delicious than seeing the Righteous squirming and frothing as they are hoist on their own absurd petard?

Children's book publisher Elizabeth Laws, meanwhile, took to Twitter to say that it was the first time in 25 years that "a children's book leaves me speechless".

"Would love to deconstruct everything wrong with this. #1, Open Carry isn't a verb," she wrote. "Bad enough that her parents pack heat, but who made a teen wear a granny blouse? Or tease her hair? #badparenting."

Could have been worse, though. They could have been depicted smoking:

Concerns about the message this depiction of smoking sends have been raised by parents in online reviews and on parenting website Mumsnet. On Amazon, one wrote: "Why on earth would a children's book contain even the idea of smoking! Disgusting!"

Another had it that: "It's a lovely book up until you reach the smoking pages. Even though it makes the point that smoking is a bad idea, it makes me really uncomfortable to see any depiction of it in a children's book,"…

These people have reproduced and are raising children. No wonder we are in a mess!

And for once, it’s not a ‘crisis’ caused entirely by the ‘terrible Tory cuts’, but – in a delicious irony – partly by equality legislation:

Specialist safe houses for women and children – which were forged out of the feminist movement in the 1970s – are being forced to shut by some local authorities because they do not take in male victims.
In other areas, refuges are facing closure in favour of preventive work and support in the community or being replaced with accommodation provided by housing associations.

There follows the usual tales of woe from all the usual suspects, especially those that support minority groups.

But it’s far from all doom and gloom:

… one of the biggest housing association providers in the UK, Home Group, said none of its 23 refuges had been closed.
Rachael Byrne, director of care and support at the association, said: "Local authorities have the unenviable task of coping with shrinking budgets and increased demand for services. We've developed more flexible services, which include floating support for survivors of domestic violence, [many of whom] tell us they do not want or need to upturn their lives by moving into a refuge."

How terribly selfish of them!
Don’t they realise that they are potentially depriving a graduate of Chip On Shoulder Identity Politics a job running a women’s refuge or DV outreach service?

Friday, 15 August 2014

Kit Marsters has post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorder, depression and OCD. He also has colossal chutzpah:

… I should welcome a new government initiative to combine mental health treatment with job support. According to government estimates, about 260,000 people claiming employment and support allowance (ESA) have mental health problems.

As is typical of the Department for Work and Pensions, however, its latest scheme is ill thought-out. For while current trials are voluntary, the aim is to make treatment mandatory – refuse and you’ll lose your benefits.

Well….yes. Why shouldn’t it be so?

Benefits are for people who can't work, not for people determined to do nothing to remove themselves from the category of 'unable to work'...

And that’s the problem. I’ve made some bad choices in life, but they were mine to make. It should also be my choice – as it should be anyone’s – who I open up to about my experiences and when I consider myself ready to do so.

Reliving a rape, for example, is a traumatic process that can unsettle the fine mental balance a person has worked hard to achieve. It can’t be rushed, and should not be subject to the threat of losing what little support and stability one has available.

So it’s your choice to live off the state until it suits you, but I presumably am expected to have no choice but to pay to support you?

Under threat of the Inland Revenue taking me to court?

Right now, a person cannot be forced to undergo treatment unless they are considered a risk to their own health and safety or that of others.

A recycling consultancy has warned that the craze for colourful loom bands is a threat to the environment. The rubber bands cannot be recycled, warned WasteConnect, and conservation experts are worried about them getting into the sea, where they could damage marine life

So, some warnings on the packets about responsible disposal, maybe someone setting up a collection & disposal service, and we’re good to go, right?

Wrong:

Should we ban the rubber jewellery before the planet is overrun with non-renewable bracelets?

Police have praised the “brilliant” behaviour of the “overwhelming majority” of Pride revellers as this year’s LGBT celebration passed off without major incident.

Oh, really?

Sussex Police made 28 arrests for offences including possession of drugs, theft, actual bodily harm and public disorder by 1am on Sunday, a reduction on the past two years.

A British Transport Officer was also injured in the process of disarming a man who pulled a knife on the officer.
Chief Superintendent Paul Brogden said on Twitter that the officer broke his wrist in the struggle.

That doesn’t seem very minor to me, nor I suspect to the chap whose wrist was broken…

a) too damn old to play with Lego,
b) not a parent, and
c) not a wackademic with an agenda.

Alongside three-quarters of a million petition signatories, the environmental campaign group is calling on Lego to drop its line of Shell-branded cars and quit endorsing Shell for good.

Gosh, ¾ of a million people clicked a petition & filled in their names (or more likely, a false name)? Yeah, I’m sure Lego will get right on that…

Lego was formed in the 1930s by philanthropist Ole Kirk Kristiansen. His vision was to make it a stalwart cultivator of creative play and contribute to healthy child development. This idea was enshrined within the company. Even Lego’s name translated from Danish means “play well”.

Indeed so. Lego was rumoured to refuse to make green & brown LEGO bricks, in case children used them to build military weapons.

Because little boys would simply be unable to make a tank or a rocket in yellow, blue or red…

As a specialist in child development, I’ve had growing concerns that now even Lego has lost its way. Its new products veer further away from its innocent beginnings. Increasingly Lego churns out lucrative but unimaginative lines of “must-have” sets to promote new movies, games and videos. These little boxes, which come with instructive pictures on the front, unlike the traditional Lego bricks, do not result in child-directed, open-ended “real play” . They do not promote imagination; they stifle it. They do not allow children to be creative and learn to think for themselves; they tell children what to think, instilling consumerist values that risk increasing rates of stress for parents and children alike.

Good lord, what a screed! Just because a few ‘branded’ sets are brought out, you’d think it’s the End of Civilisation as We Know It…

By creating Shell sets, Lego is allowing a controversial multinational to misuse its trusted brand to advertise to children and employ “pester power”. On top of that, Shell is a company whose interests lie in direct contrast to children’s, embroiled on the wrong side of the struggle to limit global warming and prevent its worst impacts.

Oh, really, this is too damned absurd! It’s not in the ‘interests of children’ to have lighting, power and heat in the future?